Ch 1 - Jokes
A/N: Well here it is, the sequel to my one-shot, a much longer story. I suppose it's not necessary to read what basically amounted to a prequel, but it would help to show how I feel the characters have progressed up to this point.
August, 2034
"Hey, wanna hear a joke?" Ellie appeared at Joel's side and leaned against the table he had his feet propped up on, looking down at him with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. It had been a long time since he heard her say that.
Green eyes peered out at him, a faint gleam of innocence mixed with the dark shade of someone who has lived through far too much. Her auburn hair rested at its habitual length, and she wore the checkered jacket she had donned after the hospital. Good clothes were rare. Good clothes that fit were rarer. Summer be damned, the jacket worked. One sleeve was rolled up, the other left to hang down the length of her arm. No one ever asked why.
"I thought you ran out of jokes from that old book?" He replied, mentally bracing himself for the inevitable bad jokes and puns she had surely collected.
"I did. Found new ones. Okay…why did the sex shop get closed down?" She stood up and pressed her hands together, a twitch forming at the edge of her lips while he rolled his eyes.
"How…do you even know what those places are?"
She ignored him, waited a few seconds before spreading her arms and giggling "It was condemned."
He sighed heavily and she giggled louder.
"Okay, okay here's another. What's the internet's favorite animal?" Another dramatic pause, "The lynx…"
She looked at him with an expectant gaze. "What's the internet?"
He just shook her head. That didn't deter her in the slightest.
"Alright, three for three. Did you hear about the fire at the circus?" She cocked an eyebrow at him and waited for an answer.
"No, I did not."
"It was in tents."
He crossed his arms and nodded slightly, allowing just the slightest grin to form. The warehouse they were in was in the middle of town, and it held a good portion of the town's stockpiles. Tommy had put him in charge of it, under the assumption that "if you can steal it and sell it you can probably guard it and trade it." He had naturally chosen Ellie as his assistant. She noticed the twitch of his lips, and high-fived herself.
He pulled his legs off the table and leaned towards her, resting his chin on his fingertips.
"Alright little lady, how about I tell you a joke?"
She raised her eyebrows and grinned wider, faking a double take.
"Say what now? You…a joke? Yeah, right."
"No no, hear me out now." He cleared his throat and seemed to think for a moment.
"So some bacon, eggs and toast walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them and says 'sorry, we don't serve breakfast.'"
Ellie's face lit up, and she gave a loud bark of laughter, and sat down on the table, shifting up so her legs dangled off the end.
"Oh man, you actually told a joke. And it didn't completely suck."
He leaned back and raised an eyebrow.
"Now hold on. Didn't completely suck? You're telling me it was a bad joke?"
She bit her lip and forced a look of sorrow, before raising a hand and putting the tips of her thumb and pointer finger a bit apart while mouthing "little bit." He slapped her shoe and she giggled again, letting her leg sway back and forth. She glanced out the window and saw a few people carting a freshly killed deer into one of the entrances of the warehouse. She got up to direct them where to put it, but paused and turned back to Joel, nodding in the direction of the forest.
"Won't it be our turn to go out hunting soon?"
He looked at her, and thought for a moment.
"In a month or two, why?"
"No reason, just as long as we don't have to go out during winter." She paused to crack her knuckles. "I don't like being out in the winter anymore."
"You know you don't have to go out at all Ellie. We can find you something else to do while I'm out."
She shook her head, and her eyes flashed for momentarily with defiance.
"If you go, I go."
He rocked a bit and nodded, drumming a few fingers against the table in a lazy rhythm.
"Alright baby girl, have it your way. I'm surprised you wouldn't jump at the chance to relax with friends though."
She waved a hand dismissively in his direction as she began to walk away.
"Friends are good, really. But sometimes they just don't shut up. And you…you hardly talk at all ninety-nine percent of the time. It's a welcome break."
He gave one chuckle, and looked at her before moving his head towards the men who were now waiting in the warehouse.
"Go show them where to put it before it bleeds everywhere. "
She smirked again, opening the door and walking out, pausing just long enough to look over her shoulder to say.
"Yes ma." It was a horrible parody of a southern accent. He rolled his eyes, she giggled more and shut the door behind her.
He was left to his thoughts. Things had slowly been getting better. For a while there Ellie had seemed to escape inside herself. The sarcastic kid he knew was starting to shine through again though. He would awkwardly offer to listen to her if she needed to talk about anything if he caught her just staring into space, but each time she would wave it off, declare that she was "just thinking" and leave it at that. But he didn't hear any more resentment in her voice. She still had work to do on herself. But it was something, he thought. And where would she be if he had just walked away? He shook his head as bad taste crept along the back of his mouth as he remembered the hospital, and quickly focused his attention on the inventory sheets he had in front of him.
Ellie guided the men into a back room, then down a dirt slope and past a plastic curtain into a hastily dug basement. Below ground it was cooler, and maybe, just maybe that would help the meat last just a day longer if the power went out and stayed out again. Cooling units had been placed along the ceiling and floor, keeping the room colder than outside. They dragged the deer over to a carving table, and she showed them where to put their cuts after they finished stripping it. She shivered, and with a nod to the leader of the group turned around and walked out. They weren't dangerously close to starving. That was a welcome change.
She walked back out, and stepped into the sunlight to warm up. She looked over to the office, and saw Joel shuffling papers, clearly restless. In a way they both were. This wasn't a life she thought she'd ever have. For a while she didn't want a life at all. Maybe she was being selfish, maybe she should have died, but everything he said made sense, in some strange kind of way. Could be it was just what she was trying to convince herself of, she wasn't sure yet. But it helped to try to wear a smile these days. She kicked at the dust.
"Cant smile if you're dead." She said to herself. Besides, if it wasn't before, a cure wouldn't be possible now. Some travelers passing through had brought the news. The fireflies, those still alive, had split apart, some becoming nothing more that roving bandit groups using their old flag to lull people into a false sense of security. She had made up her mind a few weeks ago that if she was going to die for anybody, it wouldn't be for them.
She remembered another talk Joel had with her a while after the first. Those talks were one of the few times he seemed to talk and talk, and would just go on about it until all she could think about was how he must be right. She wasn't sure if he was trying to convince her, himself, or both.
"People that need a sacrifice like that aren't worth saving Ellie. There was never any definite chance of a cure, it was all what if's. It was your blood for their hope. You were nothing but fuel for the fire, and maybe they didn't even know it. Maybe I'm selfish for saving you from those animals. But you know what, that was a definite. That actually happened. You can guess and think all you want but that fact is we saved each other. I'll take two guaranteed victories over one what if, no matter the difference in size. Look around you. The fireflies killed anyone in their way, and claimed to be building a better society for it. It's nothing but a lie built on top of a mass grave. Tommy's people, us I guess…well look at us. We're living. And we're not murdering each other every day to do it. That's a bigger damn victory then those fireflies could ever claim. We've both killed people, lots of people. We'll probably kill some more, but only because we have to. Not on a whim, not on some fairytale that demands the last innocent people die for the rest of us."
What had she lost? What had she gained? She kicked at the ground again, chewing her cheek as she thought. She had lost one chance at redemption.
"Shit." She breathed. She was going to think herself into a headache. Was it so wrong to try to want to live now? Riley, Tess, all the others…would they have wanted her dead too? She couldn't help but think of a quote she had heard in some old war movie she had watched at Tommy's house. 'The dead know only one thing' she thought.
"It is better to be alive." The words still felt a little guilty rolling off her tongue. But it was getting better. You do what you have to to survive, every day. Even if that means forgiving yourself and encouraging life instead of ending it. It was strange for her to see things she had been optimistic about slowly go dark, and things that she had been pessimistic about slowly seem so much brighter. She had forced herself to change. A little hope and trust went a long way in this new town.
She had a new nightmare now too, after thinking about everything for so long. She went through with it, Joel never saved her. They sawed open her head, and pulled her brain out. She was awake the entire time, never felt a thing, but could see the ghostly doctors flickering around her vision. Her brain was ripped out, and she could see all her dead friends again. She saw her mother. She would smile big, and move to embrace her, but her mom would just stare at her with a mix of revulsion and pity.
"I never wanted to see you here Ellie. You're just one more body now. Just like us."
She would step back, cry out that she saved everyone, did what she had to. Her mother would just point behind Ellie, and she would turn to see new quarantine zones manned by firefly thugs, with malnourished people clambering in line for a shot at the cure. There would be gunfire, yelps, and a heavy smell of defeat. It stunk like what she imagined a concentration camp from that history book she had read would smell like. Behind her she would just hear her mother shriek, screaming that life was worth living.
Oddly enough she never felt fear or sadness in this one. Just a feeling of disconnect, like she was watching these things off the blurry water of a stagnant pond. The view would snap back to the doctors, she would hear them curse and swear how they were so close. They just needed one more girl. She heard that again and again, each time seeing more phantoms lie down on the operating table. The bodies would all just melt into each other, a new face piled on top of a new face, mouths and noses and eyes all bleeding and running into each other. A disgusting mass of humanity would seem to stare up at her. She always woke up after that. Never with a yelp, never with fear. Just with an aching hollowness. Funny, she thought, how that was always the dream that would drive her into Joel's room, to quietly sit at the foot of his bed and match her breathing to his before heading back to her room and passing out.
It wasn't all bad though. She actually had her first pleasant dream for once. The simplicity of it just calmed her down. She just lived. It was in a sleepy little town. Whether it was before or after the infection she could never tell. But she just lived, one day a second. It was strange to feel bored. It seemed to take the place of fear in all her other dreams. Through it all she would always hear Joel saying her name, tenderly, to the rhythm of a grandfather clock striking the hour, like one she had seen in Boston so long ago. She never had a switch blade in that dream, no frayed backpack or tattered clothes. That dream ended the same way each time. The days would pass and pass and she would grow tired, so very tired. Her eyes would start to close and she would fall asleep and gently slip away, waking up in her bed with a quiet sigh, back into reality.
"Ellie." The voice snapped her out of her thoughts. Joel was next to her.
"Someone's coming down the road. Get up to the roof and watch them. If they gives the guards any problem…you know what to do."
She nodded, and started to jog into the warehouse, towards the ladder leading to a small crow's nest they had built. He stopped her.
"You ok to do this? We can find someone else…"
She waved him away, walking backwards as she spoke.
"I can do it. It's surviving. Not murder. Just surviving. I won't let you down."
His eyes met hers, and he let his guard down briefly. She could see the love in his eyes, mixed with a pain and guilt that even now she might still have to kill.
"You never have kid."
A/N: There you have it; hopefully the first of many chapters. I hope you enjoy, and reviews and favs/follows are greatly appreciated
Disclaimer: any books or movies, and their content, referenced in my story are obviously not my own. The only thing I have is the plot and any new characters I may introduce.